Huntington Beach could be first in O.C. to protect senior mobile homes

Feb. 4, 2014

Updated Feb. 6, 2014 12:06 p.m.

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Gary Thiessen of Rancho Huntington Mobile Park speaks at the Jan. 28 Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held in the city's council chambers. The issue was a proposed zoning change that would preserve senior mobile home parks and prevent them from being converted to family or all-age parks. The issue has been hotly contested in Huntington Beach. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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Betsy Crimi lives with Cheeto at Rancho Huntington Mobile Home Park in Huntington Beach, where she is president of the park's homeowners association. The park, in Huntington Beach, is under new ownership and maintenance. Ownership shifted from family ownership to corporate ownership and residents have seen a spike in rents. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Rancho Huntington Mobile Home Park resident Betsy Crimi walks Cheeto. Crimi is the president of the park's homeowners association. The park, in Huntington Beach, is under new corporate ownership, and residents have see a spike in rents. Residents and HOA representatives have appeared at City Council meetings asking for rent control to rein in costs that have affected seniors residents the most. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Pat Williams listens intently during a Jan. 28 Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held at the Huntington Beach City Council. The meeting was regarding a proposed zoning change that would preserve senior mobile home parks and prevent them from being converted to family or all-age parks. The issue has been hotly contested in Huntington Beach. Many seniors who live in the parks are in support of restrictions on conversions. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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A Planning Commission meeting and public hearing was held Jan. 28 at the Huntington Beach City Council meeting regarding a proposed zoning change. The change would prevent senior mobile home parks from being converted to family or all-age parks. The issue has been hotly contested in Huntington Beach. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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Kenny Mollohan, left, Orval Thompson and Gordon Briggs, all from the Rancho Del Rey mobile home park in Huntington Beach, attend a Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held at the Huntington Beach council chambers. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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The audience applauds during a Jan. 28 Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held at the Huntington Beach council chambers. The meeting was regarding a proposed zoning change that would prevent senior mobile home parks from being converted to family or all-age parks. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

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Bob Dingwall, left, Robert Franklin, Erik Peterson, and Edward Pinchiff listen to audience members during the Jan. 28 Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held at the Huntington Beach council chambers. The meeting was regarding a proposed zoning change. KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Gary Thiessen of Rancho Huntington Mobile Park speaks at the Jan. 28 Planning Commission meeting and public hearing held in the city's council chambers. The issue was a proposed zoning change that would preserve senior mobile home parks and prevent them from being converted to family or all-age parks. The issue has been hotly contested in Huntington Beach.KAREN TAPIA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Senior mobile home park ordinance

Huntington Beach is considering an ordinance that would prevent senior mobile home parks in the city from being converted to family parks.

The ordinance, formally called the senior residential overlay district for mobile home parks, involves making changes to city zoning laws.

If the ordinance passes, it would be the first of its kind in Orange County.

Source: City of Huntington Beach

By the numbers

Huntington Beach has 18 mobile home parks, 10 of which are senior parks.

In order to be a senior park, 80 percent of the park's population must be at least 55 years old.

14 percent of the city's population is seniors age 65 and older.

5 apartment complexes in the city are available specifically to low-income seniors through government financing, but the waiting lists for those apartments range from 1 to 5 years long.

Of 25,000 people using Orange County Housing Authority rental assistance, 69 percent are elderly and disabled.

Source: Huntington Beach city website, city staff report, Orange County Office on Aging

Complaints about state law

Residents and Huntington Beach officials say the state law that regulates mobile home parks doesn't offer enough protections for homeowners.

The Mobile Home Residency Law can help with health and safety issues and unlawful or unfair sales practices by dealers and salespeople.

But it does not assist residents with "unfair or illegal management practices by mobile home park management," according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development's website.

Additionally, the Department of Housing and Community Development doesn't enforce the law, said spokesman Eric Johnson. That means if a homeowner has a problem with unfair management practices, their main option is to sue.

For help regarding issues with mobile homes or to file a complaint, visit the Department of Housing and Community Development at hcd.ca.gov/codes/ol/ombpg-menu.html or call 1-800-952-5275 or 916-263-4742.

Source: Department of Housing and Community Development

Parks that would be affected

If Huntington Beach passes the ordinance preventing senior mobile home parks from converting to family parks, these 10 senior parks would be protected:

• Rancho Huntington Mobile Park

• Skandia Mobile Country Club

• Sea Breeze Mobile Estates

• Brookfield Manor

• Los Amigos Mobile Home Park

• Rancho Del Rey Mobile Home Estates

• Huntington Harbour Village

• Beachview Manufactured Home Community

• Mariners Pointe Mobile Home Park

• Del Mar Mobile Estates

Source: City of Huntington Beach

HUNTINGTON BEACH – When Bill Reitz and his wife Karen moved into the Rancho Huntington Mobile Home Park in 2006, the park was owned by a family. Their rent was about $550, and would go up about $20 a year.

In January 2013 Sierra Corporate Management became the owner and operator of the park on Brookhurst Street and Yorktown Avenue. As of Jan. 1 this year, the couple’s rent is $946.

Karen Reitz, 66, who is retired and disabled from a work injury, and Bill, who retired and now has a part-time supervising job at Huntington Beach High School, worry about how they’re going to afford the rent.

“My wife keeps asking, every day, ‘When are we going to move?’” said Bill Reitz, 65. “We had to downsize to move in here and we thought this was gonna be it.”

Over the past year, Huntington Beach officials have heard from dozens of seniors expressing similar fears – that their senior mobile home parks will be converted to family parks, the rents will skyrocketand they will eventually be forced out of their homes.

So the city is taking action to keep 10 senior mobile home parks from being converted to family parks. On Jan. 28, the Planning Commission approved the first step of an ordinance that would make changes to city zoning codes to preserve the parks for senior citizens. The City Council is expected to vote on the proposal on March 3 – and if it is approved, Huntington Beach would be the first city in Orange County to provide such protections for senior parks.

The proposal has drawn criticism from mobile home park owners, who say the move would violate their rights to change the rules at their parks.

In July, Rancho Huntington residents were given notices that their park would be changing to a family park, shortly after the City Council asked staff to draft the ordinance. City officials say Rancho Huntington is still a senior park.

“This is a fundamental property rights issue for us,” Abe Arrigotti, president of Sierra Corporate Management, said at the time. He said the park is now a family park.

The council also approved a moratorium to prevent any conversions while the plan goes through the approval process.

While Oceanside has similar protections for senior parks, Huntington Beach is basing its plan on a Yucaipa ordinance that was approved in 2009 but went through a lengthy court battle.

Mobile home park owners there sued the city alleging the ordinance violated the Fair Housing Amendments Act by protecting housing for a specific age group. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the Yucaipa ordinance in 2012 and determined it didn’t violate the housing act, which provides an exemption for senior communities.

Huntington Beach Councilman Jim Katapodis said the city needs to protect affordable housing options for seniors – estimated to be 14 percent of the city’s population.

“We have affordable housing, but we have lots of people applying for that,” he said. “It’s a reason to help seniors to have … somewhere they can live in a senior community.”

Planning Commission Chairman Erik Peterson was one of two commissioners to oppose the plan.

“I believe we need to help our seniors, I do believe in charity … I don’t see it to be the government’s responsibility,” he said.

Affordable housing for seniors

Many seniors move to mobile homes thinking it is an affordable way to own a home. Now, some are worried that their investments will continue to get costlier.

Throughout Orange County, there are indications that seniors need help paying for their homes. Of 25,000 people using Orange County Housing Authority rental assistance, 69 percent are elderly and disabled, according to the county’s Office on Aging website.

In Huntington Beach, many affordable senior housing units in the city, such as Five Points Senior Apartments, Bowen Court and Emerald Cover Senior Apartments, have wait lists between one and five years, according to the city’s website.

Jennifer Shankland, Yucaipa’s deputy city clerk, said seniors there were experiencing much of what Huntington Beach residents describe before the ordinance was passed.

“We had seniors living in a park that had a lot of young people moving in and that’s not what they signed up for,” Shankland said. “They … made a personal investment in the park. If anything, it’s to protect the lifestyle.”

Of the 18 mobile home parks in Huntington Beach, 10 are seniors-only, meaning at least 80 percent of the residents are at least 55 years old. The other eight parks would not be affected by the ordinance, officials said.

The ordinance wouldn’t guarantee that rents won’t increase for senior parks, but for many residents the issue is about their quality of life. At the Planning Commission meeting, dozens of seniors filled the seats and many voiced their concerns about their communities being taken away.

“We all chose to live in these parks because they’re senior parks,” said Bruce Binder, a resident of Rancho Huntington Mobile Home Park.

Betsy Crimi, 74, has lived in Rancho Huntington for eight years and in Huntington Beach for 43 years. As president of the park’s homeowners association, she said she is concerned about the prospect of changes to the park.

“If this park is converted to a family park, our rents will increase probably twice what we’re paying today,” Crimi told the Planning Commission at a recent study session. “Many seniors are putting up their homes for sale; they’re afraid of evictions.”

Another problem seniors face is coming up with thousands of dollars to move their homes if the rent gets too high.

It can cost the homeowner up to $10,000 to move a home out of a mobile home park, experts say.

“It’s not expensive to move, it’s impossible,” said Bob Solomon, a law professor at UC Irvine with expertise in the area of mobile home parks.

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